The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group (29 page)

‘Yes, but—’

‘You’ve gotta keep an open mind! You’re always saying that!’ I pleaded. ‘Mum, if I wasn’t a werewolf, this place wouldn’t even be here. You should
see
what’s downstairs. They’ve got it all set up for werewolf fights, and it must have cost a fortune. You don’t spend money like that for nothing.’

‘You do if you’re deluded,’ she mumbled, staring in front of her. By now I was getting really impatient.

‘How could they
all
be deluded?’ I asked. ‘You reckon they’ve been hypnotised, or something?’ When she wouldn’t answer – or even look at me – I leaned down further and pushed my head through the window. ‘They’re not deluded, Mum, and I haven’t been brainwashed. I haven’t been here long enough to get brainwashed.’

At last she fixed her bloodshot eyes on my face. She was holding on to the steering wheel as if it were keeping her afloat in a stormy sea; her hair was a mess and her lips were dry and cracked.

‘We have to go . . .’ she said hoarsely.

‘We will. After you’ve come inside.’

‘Only if you tell me one thing.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Are there drugs inside that house? Illegal drugs?’

Oh, man
, I thought. And aloud I said, ‘You think we’re all
stoned
? Is that it? You think Nina’s mum is having hallucinations?’ Even though I was famished, and frightened, and suffering from half a dozen aches and pains, I couldn’t help smiling. Estelle on hard drugs?
Puh-lease.
‘Honest to God, there’s
nothing
inside that house. No food. No medicine. Nothing. That’s why I wanna leave as much as you do.’

‘So get in the car and we’ll go!’

‘I
can’t
. Not yet. I’m part of this now. I have to make you understand.’ And then all at once a spark plug fired in my head. Being different wasn’t an illness. She knew that. She
believed
in that. ‘Mum, what do you think I was doing in that dingo pen? I was there because I’m a werewolf. It’s who I am. Can’t you accept who I am?’

Maybe I’d hit a nerve – or maybe she was just too tired to argue. Whatever the reason, she suddenly gave in, switching off the headlights and stepping out of the car. There was no one else around. While Mum and I had been talking, Dr Plackett must have coaxed Danny through the front door. Nina and Reuben must have followed them inside, while Estelle and Sergio had also disappeared – around the back of the house, perhaps? Everything seemed very dark, though a golden glow was still spilling through the kitchen window.

With Mum’s help, I made my way up the front steps. If we’d had a torch it would have been a lot easier, but I managed somehow. On the veranda we ran into Danny’s dogs; they were pacing around, whining and yapping, as if they didn’t know whether to wag their tails or sink their teeth into the nearest human body part.

‘They ought to be locked up,’ Mum said, peering nervously at their restless, shadowy shapes. ‘You can tell they’re unstable. And they’re in a pack, too – packs are always hard to control.’

‘Yeah, well . . .’ I shrugged. ‘We can’t lock ’em up, because the tanks are full.’

‘Who do they belong to?’

‘Danny.’

‘Oh.’

‘They’re pretty well trained. They won’t do anything unless he tells ’em to.’

‘Well, that’s a problem in itself,’ Mum observed, ‘since I don’t think Danny will be saying much in the near future. Not if he’s had a stroke.’

Luckily, the dogs didn’t attack us as we moved inside. The first thing I did, once I’d crossed the threshold, was to turn the hall light on. Then I headed for the kitchen, refusing to lean on Mum while there was a perfectly good wall to support my weight.

‘Who’s that?’ she suddenly demanded. She had reached the door to Gary’s bedroom; even though I was a few steps behind her, I could hear the gasp and rattle of his breathing.

‘Oh – well – that’s Gary. He’s one of the guys who kidnapped me,’ I explained. ‘He was in a road accident.’

‘He’s cheyne-stoking.’

‘Huh?’

‘He’s dying,’ she said flatly. ‘That’s cheyne-stoking respiration. It means that he’s dying.’ Her fierce gaze flashed around the empty corridor. ‘Where’s the phone?’

‘There isn’t one,’ I confessed. ‘I mean, there isn’t a landline. Not here. Reuben has a satellite phone—’

Mum didn’t wait for me to finish. She marched ahead until she reached the kitchen, while I hobbled along in her wake. By the time I’d caught up with her, she was haranguing Estelle, who was sitting at the table puffing on a cigarette.

The only other person in sight was Sergio. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that he was chewing ravenously on a muesli bar. Had Estelle given it to him?

‘—dying in there!’ Mum was shouting. ‘He needs to be in hospital!’

Estelle squinted through a cloud of smoke. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure! He’s cheyne-stoking! You probably don’t know what that means—’

‘I know what that means,’ Estelle interrupted. ‘I’m a hospital volunteer, remember?’ As she lumbered to her feet, I suddenly realised. Of course! Estelle must have been the one who’d put Father Ramon’s letter in my hospital room!

But I was more interested in the contents of Estelle’s pockets than I was in her volunteer work.

‘Can I have a muesli bar too?’ I asked.

‘Nope. All I’ve got left are some mints.’ She reached the top of the stairs and yelled down them. ‘
Oi! Sanford! This bloke up here is cheyne-stoking!
’

There was a moment’s pause. Then a ‘What?’ came drifting up.

‘
That fractured skull!
’ she bellowed. ‘
He’s cheyne-stoking!
’

‘So can I have the mints, then?’ You must think I’m a bastard, the way I was obsessing about food at a time like that. But my stomach was growling, and Gary wasn’t exactly a friend of mine, and there was a weird, dreamlike quality about the whole scene, anyway; somehow I couldn’t believe that Gary was
really
dying. ‘Please?’ I begged. ‘I’ve hardly had anything to eat all day . . .’

Estelle reached into the pocket of her cardigan and pulled out a packet of mints, which she passed to me without a word. Meanwhile, Dr Plackett was slowly emerging from the hole in the floor, his feet thudding rhythmically on the stairs. He’d taken his sunglasses off, exposing a sunken pair of eyes. With his cadaverous face and bad colour, he looked almost as sick as Gary did.

Mum didn’t let that stop her, though. She got stuck into him anyway.

‘Gary needs to go to
intensive care
!’ she ranted, waving her arms around. ‘He’s in a
critical condition
!’

‘I’ll have a look at him,’ said Dr Plackett.

‘He doesn’t need you, he needs a hospital!’ Mum cried, as the doctor trudged past her, carrying his bag. ‘We have to call for help! This is an emergency! If you don’t bring me a phone, I’m going to report you!’ When he disappeared into the hallway, she screamed after him, ‘You can’t possibly handle this on your own!’

‘It’s all right, darl, I’m here to back him up,’ said Estelle, who had offered her chair to me. But Mum wasn’t impressed.

‘
You!
’ she spat. ‘Hah! You call yourself a health worker, and you’re
smoking
! In front of these
children
!’

Estelle blinked. I wasn’t expecting her to apologise, but she did more than that. She blushed, cleared her throat and stubbed out her cigarette.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I keep forgetting. You can’t kill vampires with second-hand smoke. And I seem to spend most of my bloody time with vampires these days.’

Mum scowled. She was so disgusted with all this talk about vampires that she probably would have thrown something at Estelle, given the chance. But there were no cups or knives or pieces of furniture within easy reach – and before she could even consider hurling her shoes or her car keys, Reuben’s arrival distracted her.

He had come up from the basement, red-eyed and reeling with fatigue. The rifle was tucked under his arm.

‘What is it?’ he asked no one in particular. ‘What’s happening?’

‘We need your phone,’ Mum snapped, before Estelle could speak. ‘Toby says you have a working phone – is that right?’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘Gary is dying. He needs emergency intervention.’ When no one did anything but stare at her numbly, Mum stamped her foot. ‘Did you hear me? He’s
cheyne-stoking
. He won’t last another hour!’

Reuben scratched his shaggy head. ‘Have you told Sanford?’ was all he could think of to say.

Mum gave up, then. For some reason the question broke her. Tears sprang to her eyes; her shoulders sagged and her voice cracked. ‘Don’t you understand?’ she said. ‘Aren’t you listening to me? There’s nothing a doctor can do – that man needs a hospital!’

Everyone else exchanged sheepish glances. Even Estelle grimaced like someone with bad indigestion. But nobody knew what to do next. Certainly not without the doctor’s input.

I couldn’t say a word because my mouth was full of mints.

‘If you don’t act now, you’ll be guilty of manslaughter,’ Mum warned, much to Sergio’s annoyance. He scowled ferociously.

‘It wasn’t
our
fault,’ he protested. ‘Gary’s the one who crashed the truck. We wouldn’t even
be
here if it wasn’t for Gary!’

Mum ignored him. ‘The longer you wait, the worse it will be. For
everyone
,’ she told the entire group. Then she focused on Reuben. ‘Where’s your phone?’ she asked.

He hesitated. For the first time in ages, I remembered that he was actually quite young. Though he hadn’t been fazed by vicious attack dogs, armed lunatics or out-of-control utility trucks, righteous mothers really seemed to throw him off balance.

As he opened his mouth, we heard footsteps in the corridor.

‘Ah,’ said Estelle. ‘Here we go. This is the man we should be talking to.’ She didn’t even wait for Dr Plackett to appear in the doorway. Instead she just shouted her next question. ‘
So what’s the score, Sanford? How’s he doing?
’

A split-second later, Dr Plackett stepped into the room. He was so green around the gills that he had to prop himself against a wall – but I don’t think Gary’s condition was making him sick. Neither Reuben nor Estelle even asked the poor bloke if he was feeling all right; judging from their general lack of interest in his health, I could only assume that he spent most of his time looking absolutely wasted.

When his sombre gaze fell on us, we knew that something bad had happened.

‘Well?’ said Mum, breaking the extended silence. ‘Is he dead?’

I stopped chewing.

‘No,’ Dr Plackett replied hoarsely. ‘No, he’s not dead. Not yet. But there’s only one thing we can do for him, at this point.’ He turned to Reuben, licked his lips and braced himself. Then he took a deep breath before finally coming out with it. ‘We don’t have a choice,’ he stammered. ‘We’re going to have to . . . um . . . to let Barry deal with him.’

‘Y
ou’ve gotta be
kidding,’ said Reuben.

Estelle erupted into a coughing fit that left her purple and bug-eyed.

‘It’s the only course open to us,’ Dr Plackett continued gravely. ‘And there isn’t much time to make a decision.’

‘Jeez, Sanford.’ Reuben looked shell-shocked. ‘I dunno . . .’

‘There must be something else we can do,’ Estelle wheezed.

‘No.’ The doctor shook his head. ‘There’s no alternative. Not at this point. Either we let the man perish, or . . .’ He shrugged.

‘Or what?’ Mum asked. She was utterly mystified. But no one took any notice.

‘Maybe he’d be better off dead,’ Estelle proposed – and that was when I suddenly figured out what was going on. If Gary turned into a vampire, he wouldn’t be
able
to die. So Dr Plackett was suggesting that Barry be allowed to bite one more person.

Oh, man,
I thought.
Tell me this isn’t happening.

‘I mean, can you really call it a life?’ Estelle went on. ‘Nina doesn’t seem to think so. This bloke – what’s-his-name – might not thank us when he wakes up.’

‘Who cares?’ Reuben snapped. ‘He bloody
deserves
to be miserable forever. He’s a scumbag. It’s not him I’m worried about; it’s us. We’d get stuck with ’im, wouldn’t we? He’d end up at our group meetings.’

Estelle winced. Dr Plackett sighed. ‘I’m afraid so,’ he conceded. ‘On the other hand, getting stuck with a corpse would be worse. Dead bodies are terribly hard to dispose of.’

Reuben made a scornful noise.

‘Are you kidding?’ he exclaimed. ‘We’ve got a whole desert out there to dump a corpse in!’

‘Yes, but I’m not a killer. And neither are you.’ Dr Plackett was talking directly to Reuben, as if the rest of us didn’t exist. ‘I vote in favour. I think we should do this.’

‘Do what?’ said Mum. She was still in the dark. ‘Are you saying there’s something you can do
for this man?’

‘Uh – Mum—’

‘And you’re actually wondering if you
should
?’ She was scandalised. ‘Are you insane? Of course you should!’

‘Mum—’

‘Nina’s not going to like it,’ Estelle grumbled, ignoring my mother. ‘Where is she, anyway? In the bathroom? Is she sick?’

‘She’s downstairs,’ Reuben admitted. He explained that he had left Nina to guard Danny, who was no trouble at all. ‘It was only for a minute,’ Reuben assured Estelle. ‘And she’s got the other gun. We were trying to work out what cell to put him in, but then you wanted Sanford to come up, and the whole thing kinda got hijacked . . .’

‘We should put him in Barry’s cell,’ Dr Plackett interrupted, moving across the kitchen. He called to Nina, who came to the bottom of the staircase. While she and Reuben and the doctor were engaged in a brief yet heated argument about Barry, Sergio leaned towards me and said in a low voice, ‘They want the other vampire to bite Gary, right?’

‘Right,’ I agreed.

‘Like Danny got bitten?’ When I shrugged, Sergio added, ‘That didn’t work too well.’

What could I say? ‘Gary’s not a werewolf,’ I pointed out.

‘Oh my God.’ Mum had twigged, at long last. ‘Is
that
what this is all about? Turning people into vampires?
That’s
the solution they’re proposing?’ When I nodded, she began to wring her hands. ‘What are we going to do?’ she whimpered. ‘We’ll end up in gaol, I just know it!’

By that time, I didn’t care. My dog bite was sore and so was my foot. My head was throbbing. The mints hadn’t filled me up much. I felt weirdly detached from the whole scene. ‘Didn’t Lincoln have some aspirin in his bag?’ I asked Sergio.

‘Yeah.’

‘Are there any left?’

‘I think so . . .’

‘Let me fetch them,’ Mum offered. But she didn’t get the chance to try, because all at once Dr Plackett made an important announcement.

A decision had been reached, he said. Since these were highly unusual circumstances, the Reformed Vampire Support Group’s ban on fanging people would be lifted for one night only. Barry McKinnon would be allowed to infect a dying man as part of an emergency treatment regime. All non-vampires would have to lock themselves in the bathroom while Barry was at large. There could be no exceptions to this rule. Nina and the doctor would escort Barry upstairs while Reuben stood guard in the bathroom with his rifle.

Reuben objected. He didn’t want to stay in the bathroom. According to him, Barry would be hard for two sickly vampires to control, handgun or no handgun. ‘You’ll need a bit of muscle,’ he said. ‘You’ll need someone who doesn’t throw up at the drop of a hat.’ But Reuben was outvoted.

Even Estelle wanted him in the bathroom.

‘When I was a barmaid, I once held off six drunken bikers with a cricket bat and a bottle of Guinness,’ she revealed, ‘but right now I don’t have a cricket bat
or
a bottle of Guinness. And this lot won’t be much help if Barry breaks down the door – not with all their sprains and whatnot.’ She cocked her thumb in my direction, then fired off another salvo before Reuben could open his mouth. ‘Besides,’ she said to him, ‘you saw what happened to your mate Danny. I reckon you’d be worse off than most people if Barry got his teeth into you. At least Nina and Sanford can still get dressed without help.’

In the end, she won. Reuben’s protests fell on deaf ears. Everybody who wasn’t a vampire – and who hadn’t been confined to an underground cell – trooped into the bathroom, which was the only room in the house that could be locked from the inside. Sergio brought a couple of chairs with him, Mum brought Lincoln’s bag, and Reuben brought the rifle. What with all this extra stuff, plus five bodies, it was a bit of a tight squeeze; the room wasn’t very big to begin with, and since it hadn’t been renovated (or even cleaned) since about 1958, most of the available space was filled with massive, weighty fittings in shades of snot-green or pus-yellow.

But we managed to cram ourselves in somehow, once Sergio had climbed into the bath and I had parked myself on the toilet seat. ‘Don’t come out till we’ve given you the all-clear,’ Dr Plackett instructed, slamming the door in our faces. Then he hurried back downstairs.

It was Reuben who turned the dinky little lock on the flimsy aluminium doorknob.

‘Like
that’s
gunna stop a blood-crazed vampire,’ he groused.

No one responded. As Dr Plackett’s footsteps faded away, the only sounds to be heard were the
drip-drip-drip
of a leaky tap and the distant rattle of Gary’s breathing. It was the breathing that got to me. At first I was able to distract myself by rooting around in Lincoln’s bag for an aspirin, which I swallowed with a scoop of tap water. After a while, though, I had to do something else.

‘What’s the time?’ I asked.

‘Nine-fifteen,’ said Mum.

‘Mmmph.’ No wonder I was starving. ‘So what’s the deal with these vampires?’ was my next query. ‘How did you find them, anyway?’

I was addressing Reuben, who had his ear pressed to the door.

‘I didn’t find them,’ he replied. ‘They found me. Remember how I told you I was rescued from the tank downstairs? Well, they’re the ones who did it: Nina and Dave and Father Ramon. And Sanford sent them, so I guess he was involved too . . .’

‘Hang on.’ I did a mental double take. ‘Who’s Dave?’

With a shrug, Reuben said, ‘He’s another vampire.’

My jaw dropped. Sergio gave a little yip of surprise. Mum covered her face with her hands, shaking her head in despair.

‘You mean there are
more
?’ I demanded.

‘Love, there’s no end to them,’ Estelle informed me. She was sitting on a chair, looking like someone who desperately needed a smoke. ‘You’ve already met Bridget, but there’s also Dave and Gladys and Dermid and George—’

I cut her off. ‘
Bridget’s
a
vampire?
’ I couldn’t have been more astonished. ‘You’re
kidding
!’

‘Who’s Bridget?’ Sergio wanted to know.

‘She’s a little old lady.’ I stuck out my hand. ‘She’s about yay high, she has bad hips, and she makes scones.’

‘She was eighty-three when she turned,’ Estelle explained. ‘Bridget’s as good as gold. You don’t have to worry about Bridget – she wouldn’t hurt a fly. And Dave’s a lovely bloke. He’s the nicest fellow you could ever meet, even though he doesn’t say much.’

‘And George is all right,’ Reuben grudgingly allowed. ‘Not that you’d wanna go anywhere near ’im, but at least he’s not a pain in the arse.’

‘The rest of them have bitten people.’ Estelle made a sour face at the thought of it. ‘They’re not to blame, God love ’em, but it makes them a bit . . .’

‘Unstable,’ Reuben supplied.

‘That’s it. If you fail your first blooding, then you’re always going to have problems. Not like Nina or Dave.’

‘Or Sanford or Bridget,’ said Reuben.

‘There are some vampires you can trust, and some you can’t,’ Estelle finished. ‘Just like everyone else on earth.’

In the silence that followed, a faint commotion reached our ears. It was the distant sound of an argument, which gradually grew louder until we could just make out what was being said over the scuffle of approaching feet and the creak of floorboards.

‘. . . wasn’t my fault!’ somebody insisted. ‘I told you, I was defending myself! You would have done the same, I bet!’

I couldn’t put a name to the voice, which wasn’t resonant like Danny’s or American like Lincoln’s. It didn’t sound like Barry’s voice, either; it was too strong and brisk and fierce.

‘Any mitigating circumstances will be taken into account.’ That was definitely Dr Plackett. I recognised his clipped, reedy vowels, which were drained of all energy and enthusiasm. ‘It wasn’t a premeditated act, so the penalty won’t be too extreme. But there are other ways of defending yourself, Barry.’

Barry! I couldn’t believe it. He was talking like a totally different person – like a normal, healthy person.

‘Not against a gun, there aren’t,’ he snapped. ‘What was I supposed to do, let ’im shoot me?’

‘You were lucky he
didn’t
shoot you,’ Dr Plackett rejoined. By this time he was right in front of our door – and I probably wasn’t the only one holding my breath inside the bathroom. ‘Bullets do just as much damage to vampires as they do to other people; don’t fool yourself.’

‘So you shouldn’t try anything stupid,’ Nina interposed.

‘That’s right,’ said the doctor. ‘Because I won’t hesitate to use this. Not if I have to.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’ Barry’s tone was deeply resentful. ‘You’ll blow me away if I fang the wrong guy.’

‘This is a medical emergency. It’s not open slather. Is that clear?’ A pause. Dr Plackett seemed to be waiting for some kind of assurance. ‘Barry?’ he said at last. ‘Are you listening?’

At first there no response. Then came an awestruck, ‘Bloody hell.’ In the blink of an eye, Barry’s entire attitude had changed. His accusing growl had become a hushed murmur. ‘Is that him?’

‘That’s him,’ Dr Plackett confirmed.

‘He looks bad.’

‘He is bad.’

Another pause. ‘Is he gunna taste funny?’

Even Reuben grimaced when he heard
that
. Estelle gave a hiss. I felt a twinge of nausea. As for Mum, she nearly burst a blood vessel. ‘Oh, this is monstrous,’ she spluttered, turning bright red. ‘
Monstrous.
How can you people just stand there and . . .? Aaugh! You’re all
sick.
’

I guess she must have been talking just a bit too loudly, because silence fell out in the hall. Then, after about ten seconds, there was a lot of shuffling and rustling and whispering as Barry was dragged into the opposite bedroom. I only realised what had happened when a door clicked shut nearby – and then I was filled with an overwhelming sense of relief.

The last thing I wanted to do was eavesdrop on Barry’s slurping noises.

Estelle must have been thinking the same thing, because all at once she said loudly, ‘So we’ll have to call Dave some time soon. Eh, Reuben?’

‘I guess,’ Reuben muttered.

‘He’ll be worried about Nina,’ Estelle went on, before peering at Sergio. ‘Where do
your
parents live, darl? We’ll have to call them too, I suppose.’

Sergio shook his head. ‘Nuh’ was all he could manage.

‘Are you sure?’ Estelle looked surprised. ‘Won’t they be worried?’

Sergio just stared down at his makeshift sling, leaving me the job of explaining.

‘They were glad to see the back of him,’ I volunteered. ‘They shut him up in a pizza oven.’

Estelle blinked. But it was Mum who echoed, ‘A
pizza oven?
’

‘Because he’s a werewolf. They were scared of him, see. That’s why he was put in foster care.’ Suddenly I remembered what I’d been meaning to tell Reuben for quite some time. ‘By the way,’ I added, turning towards him, ‘I figured out how Lincoln must have tracked us both down. He must have heard about us from this doctor we’ve been seeing. Dr Passlow. He was Sergio’s doctor, too.’

‘Really?’ said Reuben. He was so interested, he actually pulled his ear away from the door. ‘You think?’

‘Yeah. I think Dr Passlow told another doctor in America, and the other doctor told that bloke who hired Lincoln – what’s his name?’